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Alleged Ponzi Mastermind Hacked In Antigua
krebsonsecurity writes "Criminal hackers apparently involved in break-ins at several US financial institutions also appear to have dug up dirt on Robert Allen Stanford, a man slated to go on trial this month for his alleged part in an $8 billion Ponzi scheme. Quoting: 'In early 2008, while federal investigators were busy investigating disgraced financier Robert Allen Stanford for his part in an alleged $8 billion fraudulent investment scheme, Eastern European hackers were quietly hoovering up tens of thousands customer financial records from the Bank of Antigua, an institution formerly owned by the Stanford Group.'"
How was the Ponzi mastermind hacked? Unless I misunderstood something the bank was hacked. Also I find the fact that the bank was owned by Robert Stanford to be the least interesting part of this story, yet it seems to be the main part of the summary.
Was it an alleged Ponzi mastermind in Antigua that was hacked, or was he hacked (while) in Antigua? Come on... We went through this stuff already in 1st grade with Mrs. Applecheeks.
Am I the only one who finds the entire article strange?
Here is what it says about the hack itself:
Once inside of Stanford’s network, the unidentified hackers appear to have swiped the credentials from an internal network administrator, and soon had downloaded the user names and password hashes for more than 1,000 employees of Stanford Financial, Stanford Group, Stanford Trust, and Stanford International Bank Ltd.
Among the purloined files is a listing of what appear to be ownership and balance information for tens of thousands of customer accounts at Bank of Antigua. Each listing includes the account number, owner’s name, address, balance, and accrued interest.
So far, so good.
But here is where it becomes really strange:
It’s also unclear whether the hackers managed to steal any funds from the accounts listed in the recovered documents, or indeed whether the attackers ever had direct access to Bank of Antigua accounts. Still, a set of documents found with the account information suggest the perpetrators did a fairly thorough job mapping the internal networks connecting Stanford offices in Austin, Baton Rouge, Boca Raton, Boston, Denver, Ft. Lauderdale, Houston, Memphis, Miami, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Sugarland, and Washington, D.C.
What ??!!?? Or, even more clearly: WTF??
Are you trying to tell me that people sophisticated enough to get the credentials of a system administrators, info on hundreds of accounts, including passwords and so on and so forth have not transferred anything?
It's like, I have total access to hundreds of accounts, after cracking open your system security, but I did not take anything?
This thing stinks to high heaven. Either the Ponzi scheme had no money left in it, or I am willing to bet the hackers, whoever they are, have quietly siphoned a lot of money overseas.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Sounds like an illegal search and falsification of evidence.
"Sorry, your honor, but it was those darned hackers! They broke into the bank's computers, took the money, and left a trail of evidence pointing to me! I been framed!"
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
Quanta is already plural (it's the plural of quantum), so "quantas" is not a word.
But I suspect you know that and have simply typoed it...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
It sounds to me like a bunch of US tax avoiders may well have lost their financial behinds in that bank. Justice!
Oh come on...SSA and medicare is not a Ponzi. Instead of the govt lining the pockets with cash defrauded from the tax payers...they are just pissing it away on a good cause. Thats hardly a crime, right?
*twitch twitch twitch*
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
So, is Kadima a lowly Panamanian import/export firm? Or is it a front?
Are you a US citizen? Are your parents old enough to draw social security, and use the medicare benefits? Do they use them? Have you looked at the cost of your parent's prescriptions? Could they afford them without Medicare and Social Security? I'm generally a fiscal conservative and opposed to raising taxes, more government, etc. I didn't vote for Obama. There are some programs that make sense, and these definitely help out people who need them. My mother-in-law would not have had the care she needed for multiple sclerosis had it not been for Medicare and Medicaid. She suffered from multiple sclerosis for 20 years. and was disabled and could not work for nearly a decade of her 20-year struggle with the disease prior to her death from complications related to MS.
By the way, your figures appear to be incorrect. Remember that social security and medicare are "pay as you go" programs where what is paid in by employers and employees gets paid out to current recipients. It isn't a savings account for you to bank on later. According the Obama's budget summary, social security will run $696B (not $14T), medicare will run $452B (not $76T + $18.6T). That website you quote doesn't even provide a reference to their sources of information. I looked at the President's actual budget. Don't believe everything you read on websites that try to convince you they have "the facts". Always look at where their "facts" are sourced. My numbers are from the White House web page on the President's budget at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Summary_Tables/.
There are plenty of places where Congress should chop. Take a look at the pork barrel projects in your own state that your own Senators and Representatives toss in to get funding. Take a look at the numerous failed social programs. Take a look at the Federal procurement guidelines and how much it cost us to make an actual procurement. There are so many ways that the Federal procurement process alone could be simplified that would eliminate an enormous amount of wasted spending. For example, a private sector company can by $100,000 in IT assets and have it delivered in a week or two. It takes six months in the Federal government, and reams of paper. The larger the price tag, the more paperwork and time required to make the acquisition. I've worked in both arenas and speak from first hand experience.
Also take a look at the money the US hands out all over the world, as well as the programs inside the US. There are great causes we should support. There are countries who need help. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of beneficiaries who should not be getting a dime but they have friends in high places.
The Federal income tax revenue, and income from foreign loan interest and import tariffs, is tens of trillions of dollars annually. It isn't that we don't have enough money to fund the things we need. It is that we fund too many things we don't need. That being said, social security, medicare and medicaid are not in the list of programs "we don't need". If your parents are recipients of any of these programs, ask them how they would be impacted without them.
Thank you for taking the time to write that.
LOL Funny.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Ponzi schemes are all "pay as you go" programs. They collapse because they eventually run out of new people and new input.
Also, the AC's numbers are based on long-term (I would guess 50- or 75-year) horizons, not a single year -- budget summaries look at single years. Social Security is fine this year because more money is coming in than going out. Within a decade, it will be the other way, and that's when things get hard: the government has been tapping into the Social Security trust fund for decades, and now it will have to pay that fund back.
Also, I overlooked your last paragraph. According to Timothy Geithner and the OMB, the US Federal government had Fiscal Year 2009 receipts of $2.105 trillion and outlays of $3.522 trillion. That's a long way from tens of trillions of dollars -- the entire annual US Gross Domestic Product is only about $14 trillion.
Ok, social security systems for pensions work like this:
-) they take the money of new members to pay their obligations to older members.
Hmmm, sounds familiar right?
So what would happen if you tried to do such a thing, without a law legalizing your operation?
And before anyone points out that this is much better than anything bound to stocks, consider that it's fragile too:
-) bad economy means less "new members" contributing to the system as there are less employees, and they get potentially a lower pay, hence the contribution to the social security system shrinks.
-) but beyond being dependant on economy, which any pension fund is dependant too, it's also vunerable on a larger time frame base to changes in population. E.g. if you've got some years with less kids, some decades later on, you'll be missing income in the social security system.
You know the type of person that hacks for the challenge and not for a profit motivator. Back in the 90s I had a talk request from in network, so I knew something odd was up. College kid saw an interesting domain name I hosted, broke in through a pop3 weakness and grabbed a telnet password. He talked to me to let me know what he did. This let to closing telnet to co-hosted machines and also giving him the email address he asked for. I had no real problem with this as no damage was done. It also showed a weakness in the network that was able to be closed.
Tell you what. You cut my medicare and FICA taxes to zero, and I'll happily send my folks a check for $9000 ($14000 if you include my employer's half of FICA) every Christmas.
Oh, wait. I can't afford to send my folks that money, not just because it's already been stolen, but because it's already been spent - and not on taking care of everyone else's parents, but because the Social Security "trust fund" was raided to pay for all the porkbarrel spending against which you quite rightly decry.
And that $9000 will cover about 1.5 days in a hospital should they ever get sick.
My Dad worked over 30 years in a steel mill. He's been retired for about 15 years and they no longer cover him or my Mom for insurance, so they're totally dependent on medicare. I won't be surprised if he loses his pension at some point either.
Sure the govt. is inefficient. It's also the largest employer in the US and has a lot of "divisions" with a CEO replacement every 4-8 years and micromanagers with "department" agendas shuffling in and out on a 2 or 6 year cycle. You put these kinds of demands on any public or private company at the same scale and see if it will do any better...
"Are you a US citizen? Are your parents old enough to draw social security, and use the medicare benefits? Do they use them? Have you looked at the cost of your parent's prescriptions?" I'm drawing SSDI payments because of adisability which makes me unable to work. I could not afford to pay for my prescriptions and health care without medicaire and medicaid (which I receive after meeting a large spend down each month) I'm not living in luxury, sucking at the nation's teat, but I can get by with a little help from my friends.
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
I'm drawing SSDI payments because of adisability which makes me unable to work.
Yet you're able to post to /. ...